Starting a Bakery 101 or The Myth of Entrepreneurship

I am officially entering my seventh week of baking and my eighth week of being a business owner. The last two months have been a whirlwind of opening accounts, figuring out financials, brainstorming markets, and designing signs, all in a cloud of flour as I bake twice a week, refining skills and experimenting with new breads.

As I take a few precious moments to reflect on this, my first real entrepreneurial venture, I am struck by how impossible this would be for me without the generosity and support from so many people. I don't know what other people's experience has been with starting a business, but any illusions I had about it being a solo endeavor have evaporated in their entirety. 

Every aspect of my business has come to fruition because of the generosity of a friend, boss, coworker, or family member. My logo, business plan, the equipment, baking skills, the wood to fire the oven, the ability to have a schedule that allows me to bake, financial projections, the garlic, potatoes and herbs in my breads, legal paperwork, use of the oven itself, and many other intangible aspects of my work all have many fingerprints on them in addition to my own.

Whatever I may have thought an entrepreneur was before this summer, I am now convinced the keys to successful entrepreneurship go far beyond a dream, motivation, and the skills to pull it off, but necessarily include being surrounded by humble, generous people.

A picture worthy of gratitude: a borrowed book, a shed full of oven-firing wood, and a dear friend on the other side of the camera with an eye for beauty and marketing.

A special thanks to those who have helped me launch LeFevre Bakery!

Here's looking at you, Jay and Nancy Yoder, Lindsay Monihen, Greg Anderson, Kevin Cook, Damian Kastner, Jay and Carol Hershey, Micah and Bethany Spicher-Sponberg, Greg Jackson, the entire Standing Stone Coffee Company staff, and all my customers, both friends and friends-to-be.